Abbado, 2018

Published: June 24, 2018

June 25, 2018.  Claudio Abbado.  We may be wrong about Gustav Charpentier, but it seems not a single significant composer was born this week.  As for Charpentier, who was born on this day in 1860, he’s known for just one composition, the opera Louise, which was premiered (to great success, we might add) in 1900.  One aria is still being performed quite often on the concert scene – Depuis le jour.  You can hear it nicely sung by Anna Netrebko.  The Prague Philharmonia is conducted by Emmanuel Villaume. 

As long as we’re lacking composers with known birth dates, let’s mention one from the older ages.  Alessandro Striggio, an Italian, was born around 1536 into an aristocratic Mantuan family.  In 1559 he moved to Florence, to the court of Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany.  Apparently, he was close to the Duke, as in 1567 Cosimo sent him on a diplomatic mission to London.  Later Striggio traveled to Austria and Bavaria.  In 1584 Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, invited Striggio for a short visit.  At the time, Ferrara was known as one of the musical centers of Italy (and, by extension, of the world); one of the jewels of the court was a group of virtuoso female singers called concerto di donne.  Later, Striggio visited Ferrara several more times.  In 1587 he moved back to his native Mantua, were he served at the court of Vincenzo Gonzaga.  Striggio died in Mantua of a fever on February 29th of 1592.  At the time the 25-year-old Claudio Monteverdi was a viola player at the court.  Here’s Striggio’s famous motet Ecce Claudio AbbadoBeatam Lucem.  It’s performed by Ensemble Huelgas under the direction of Paul van Nevel.

Claudio Abbado, one of the greatest conductors of the “post-Karajan” era, was born in Milan on June 26th of 1933.  As a youngster he went to Wilhelm Furtwängler and Arturo Toscanini’s rehearsals (he found Toscanini’s dictatorial manner unpleasant).  Abbado attended the Milan Conservatory, where he studied piano and conducting.   Upon graduating, he spent some time in Vienna; there he befriended Zubin Mehta and listened to the rehearsals of Bruno Walter and Karajan.  He conducted his first public symphony concert in 1958, and one year later he led a performance of Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges.  In 1960 he successfully debuted at La Scala (in 1969 he became the theater’s resident conductor).  Abbado’s career took off in the 1970s: he was invited to the major opera theaters, such as Covent Garden and the Vienna Staatsoper.  In 1984 he became the music director of the Vienna opera.  All along he was extensively performing with symphony orchestras, often programming the music of the 20th century.  He became the Principal conductor of the London Symphony and the principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony.  In 1990, upon the death of Herbert von Karajan, the Berlin Philharmonic selected Abbado as its next conductor. 

In 2000 Abbado had major surgery for stomach cancer, which severely affected his performance schedule.  After formally leaving the Berlin Philharmonic in 2002 he continued working with many orchestras, but especially with the European Union Youth Orchestra, which he co-founded in 1978, the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, which he founded in 1986, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

Abbado’s discography is vast and of extremely high quality, but he was especially well known as a superb interpreter of the music if Mahler.  Here he conducts the Vienna Philharmonic.  The mezzo is Federica von Stade.

Classical
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